


better late than never

by lurkingspecter (orphan_account)



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dancing, Fluff, Nonbinary Character, Other, they/them pronouns for John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-04-06 08:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19058827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/lurkingspecter
Summary: John needs help breaking in a new pair of heels.





	better late than never

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: practice
> 
> happy pride month! <3

Heels clicked over the tile floor of the kitchen.

“Okay,” said John. “You can look now.”

Merle took his hands off his eyes. John stood in the doorway, hands on their hips, chin raised proudly. The dress was black, with quarter-length sleeves made of lace and a plunging back.

“Well,” they said, twirling, skirts rising to reveal slender ankles and a pair of stilettos, “What do you think?”

A grin split Merle’s face.

“It’s perfect,” he said.

John mirrored his smile, any anxiety they had been repressing fading at once in the face of Merle’s confidence. All the dresses they had tried before had been wrong, hugging shapes that they weren’t supposed to hug, hanging loosely where they were supposed to be tight. Merle had thought they looked beautiful on John anyway, but it had worried them, so at last they had decided to try tailoring one—and from the look on John’s face, Merle could see that it made all the difference.

They walked toward Merle, wobbling slightly, and he put his hands on their hips to steady them. They chuckled.

“I guess I should’ve started with wedges, but I was so eager...”

“Hey, why not jump off the deep end? If you can master these you’ll be able to walk in anything.”

“True.” They placed their hands on Merle’s shoulders. “Care to help me practice?”

“Of course.”

They spun across the kitchen, swayed, spun back the other way. Merle kept his hands on their waist the whole time, catching them whenever they started to skid, and led them so seamlessly that to an outside observer it would look like John never faltered at all.

“You’re an amazing partner,” they murmured.

“So are you. Romantically, I mean, not in the dancing department. Got a ways to go there.”

“Hm!” John boxed his ear lightly and tried to look offended, but Merle caught the laughing glint in their eye.

In ten minutes they had more or less got this simple dance down, and although they still couldn’t go very fast, John didn’t slip once during the last few turns.

John leaned against the the counter, sweating lightly, and poured a glass of water from the tap. They and Merle passed it back and forth for a bit, drinking in satisfied silence.

“I know I’ve said this before, but...thank you, Merle, for being so patient through all this.”

“Nothin’ to thank me for.”

John slipped out of the stilettos and stooped down to rub a sore ankle. When they stood back up, there was a wistful edge to their smile.

“I wish I’d figured this out earlier, before everything that happened. When I was young and things weren’t so complicated. When I still had time to enjoy it.”

Merle squeezed their hand.

“You do still have time. Maybe your experience would’ve been _kinda_ different if you’d come out before you decided to become a world-eating eldritch horror, but...there’s things to enjoy about how you’re doing it now, too.”

“Maybe.” John smoothed their thumb over Merle’s wooden palm. “At least I got to figure it out with you. There’s something to that.”

“Yeah. And if you’d shown up to our first parley lookin’ like this I’d have given you everything, so really, it’s for the best that you didn’t know.”

“If I’d known you were that easy I’d have come onto you a lot stronger.”

Merle scoffed.

“Please. You were head over heels the moment you saw my juicy pecs. Admit it.”

Merle pretended to flex and John collapsed against him, laughing. He puffed out his chest.

“See? You’re quivering just thinking about them.”

John shook their head and, still snickering, tugged Merle toward the door.

“Come on, Mr. Muscles. Let’s figure out how to get this thing off.”


End file.
